Trends in Med Tech

Ayogo has been named one of the top 100 most innovative mHealth companies in the world - twice. And it’s easy to see why …    

Ayogo works with some of the biggest therapeutics companies in the world to build applications that use well-established principles of perceived self-efficacy and behaviour change to promote treatment adherence and improve health outcomes. 

They employ techniques used in game development in their designs, among which is the concept of adapting to overcome a challenge in an environment that is relatively low-risk. What’s really exciting is that their approach can be applied with great success in a wide range of therapy areas including in sleep medicine, diabetes, MS, dialysis, and even social interventions, among many others.    

Michael Fergusson is an entrepreneur, innovator, philanthropist and the CEO of Ayogo. He also serves on several Boards of Directors, including Innovate BC, a Provincial Crown Agency, and the Electric Company Theatre, one of the most innovative theatre companies in the world.  

In 2012, Michael was Ernst & Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year and was also named to the PharmaVoice 100, a list of the 100 most inspiring people in Life Sciences. He was also a grand champion and a multi-gold medalist at the Western Canadian Martial Arts championships.  We hope you enjoy this conversation!  

Also check out the full episode on our Youtube Channel, MedTech Trends, here: https://youtu.be/hde80WNFQTQ

Find out more about Michael and Ayogo: 

Home: https://ayogo.com/

Prior to founding MedStack Balaji Gopalan was perhaps best known as the Product Strategist who brought BlackBerry's iconic BBM service to market. Balaji is a passionate advocate of tech for good, platforms, data security and privacy and digital health.

In 2014 Balaji was looking to build a developer platform for a digital identification company called Nimy, and while holding a hackathon he serendipitously met his now co-founder of MedStack, Simon Woodside.

Fast-forward a few years and many accelerator-incubator experiences later – MedStack has affiliations with Dreamit Health, Creative Destruction Lab, 500 Startups, and Toronto’s DMZ – this partnership has grown to support over 70 (and still growing) digital health, health-tech and medical device companies in both the US Canada.

With a growing revenue stream, even through the pandemic, they are also backed by TELUS Ventures, ScaleUP Ventures, Panache Ventures, BCMF Ventures and the Ontario Centres of Excellence, among others, and have received numerous awards and recognitions including the Canadian Innovation Exchange Top 20, Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance Award, being named to PWC's list of top companies changing healthcare in Canada, and TechCrunch Disrupt pick.

When not leading his company MedStack or acting as mentor for accelerators, Balaji spends his time as a musician and songwriter, father and making breakfast. It was a pleasure getting to Balaji and his mission and vision of enabling companies to build better healthcare systems around the world.

Also check out the full episode on our YT channel, MedTech Trends: https://youtu.be/6Rgl1nsHdWM 

Find out more about how MedStack can help your healthcare company:

Robin Mossing is EVP of Clinical Operations at iWound, a digital platform that is revolutionizing wound care through clinical education, standardizing assessments and treatment plans, and longitudinal monitoring for improved outcomes. And this is just the tip of the iceberg in iWound’s vision.

Robin brings with him two decades of experience as a clinician and entrepreneur to this relatively new venture. Working with an executive team that includes Dave Westlake and Rob Garneau, both business and industry veterans, and through a joint venture with Baltimore-based Tissue Analytics, Robin has been co-developing the iWound app with particular emphasis on improving clinician education, patient outcomes and ultimately offering a cost-containment solution to a multi billion dollar healthcare niche.

In this episode we talked about the scope of the would care practice, the complexity of managing wound care treatment and how the iWound app standardizes care and provides on-going, longitudinal treatment updates through the various stages of healing. Beyond frontline care, iWound can help clinicians stay up to date on treatment guidelines and could be used to introduce new, more effective and cost-saving technologies for optimizing wound treatment.

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Also check out the full videocast on our Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/H8fWnzZt8zA 

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Find out more

https://iwound.ca/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/company/iwound/

TW: https://twitter.com/iWound2

Tissue Analytics:

https://www.tissue-analytics.com/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tissue-analytics-inc-/

TW: https://twitter.com/tissueanalytics

FB: https://www.facebook.com/TissueAnalytics/

Dr. Elaine Chin is a physician, author, founder of multiple medical and wellness centers, thought leader in the field of precision and personalized medicine and a trailblazer in putting these principles into practice.

We introduced the idea that using technology available today – called precision diagnostics – physicians can assess a patient’s unique genes and other biological markers and then use this information to custom tailor a treatment and wellness plan to that patient.

Precision medicine has grown in popularity in recent years, supported by new research and a widening scope of practice. To me, what is most exciting is the application of precision diagnostic tools to guide patients into lifestyle changes that can prevent later onset of disease, as well its application to optimizing health and wellness – two areas with immense social and public health potential.

Find out more

Bio: https://drelainechin.com/about/

Check out the 4-part series on Youtube @ MedTech Trends:

In this episode I spoke with the co-founders of a Toronto Ontario based digital health startup that is developing a suite of AI powered clinical assistant tools for individual practices, hospitals and other healthcare services.

Hear the story behind the company’s founding, its early mission and current vision from the co-founders.

As I came to learn, the AI-powered platform is not a typical clinical automation software. Part of the founders’ vision is to improve upon interoperability between existing systems that are already deeply embedded within healthcare. By working around the edges of current standards in EMR systems, inter-departmental communications, triaging and referral processes etc., their unique approach has potential to dramatically and broadly improve workflows and service delivery.

What could all of this mean for patients and providers? We talked about a few prime outcomes: a more seamless patient onboarding and referral process without the errors, enhanced access to diagnostics test results, reduced time spent on repetitive admin tasks and overall greater provider satisfaction from spending more time in clinical practice.

The company has begun to roll out its solutions to select partners and is ramping up for a launch in the next year. They’ve recently raised $1M CAD which will go toward growing its team and scaling products for its clients in Canada and the US.

Bill Haack, CEO and Greg Schafer, CCO are part of a seasoned team that is leading an initiative to transform the way in which responsiveness to cancer treatment is assessed. If all goes to plan, the technology being developed at Cadex Genomics could impact the course of treatment for millions of late-stage (solid state) cancer patients worldwide.

At the heart of the matter is a blood-based assay called Alibrex which uses a low-cost PCR protocol to examine cell-free DNA. By comparing two blood draws taken ~2 weeks apart in patients being treated for cancer, the test is used to determine whether a tumor is responding to that treatment. The key is in its 24-hour turn-around time to assess responsiveness, which allows quicker adjustments in treatment than currently possible and may help to prevent side effects associated with unnecessary or ineffective therapies.

Though still in clinical development at sites in the US, Canada and Israel, early results have shown the test to be highly specific, meaning that it correctly identifies non-responsive (disease-progressing) patients 100% of the time, thereby flagging patients who require a different course of treatment.

With a new funding round well underway they plan to complete algorithm validation by 2020/early 2021 and to begin commercialization in mid-2021. We wish them all the best as they roll out this important development in oncology molecular diagnostics.

Find out more about Cadex Genomics:

Raphael Gotlieb created Precare.ca to address a growing problem in frontline healthcare – that miscommunication between providers and patients often leads to sub-optimal care, and in the worse cases, to medical errors and deaths.   

Educating patients about medical procedures using contextualized audio-visual content that is language-specific to the patient has huge potential for addressing this problem. Enter Precare.ca.  

In this episode we talk about the roots of the company, its approach to creating medical videos and how this all fits within the broader healthcare system.   

Find out more about Precare.ca

While completing his PhD Richard worked to design and build a hand-held bioprinter – ReverTome - that can be used in real clinical settings to treat patients surviving severe burns.

But what is bioprinting and how does it work? Can this unique bioprinter really regenerate skin? We answer these and a few other questions – stay tuned in!

Richard also gives advice to biologists aspiring to broaden their pallet of research expertise with biomedical engineering. For anyone interested in translational research and commercialization of med tech this is a great listen and we hope you are inspired!

Check out the episode video on YT -- includes a demo of ReverTome:

If you’ve ever been in an emergency department you’ve probably noticed how busy, chaotic, exhausting and uncomfortable it can be. But ED’s are also places where highly trained professionals cope with extremely challenging work conditions in order to save patients’ lives.   

So, how can an ED be improved to optimize healthcare service delivery, to help ensure that providers spend most of their time helping patients and to maximize the experiences and satisfaction of both patients and providers? It’s a big goal – one that will take a smart, dedicated and passionate team to accomplish.   

QiiQ Healthcare is targeting these problems with a technology built for health systems and healthcare providers that could greatly improve ED workflows and have substantial down-steam effects on wait times and patient satisfaction. In this episode we dive into the vision of the company through the lens of its founder, Dave Brown, and medical officer, Dr. Thanos Melisiotis.

Watch the full episode on Youtube:

Dr. Paul Kudlow MD PhD is a physician-scientist, father, Founder/Advisor and former CEO of TrendMD – the largest native advertising platform for academic research that reaches over 150 million unique visitors per month. 

In this episode I talked to Paul about his transition from medical residency into founding and running TrendMD, the early stages and the ins and outs of his company, its unique value proposition, as well as his decision to ultimately get back into psychiatry. With a ton of experience under his belt, Paul shared some of the key learnings that shaped both his company and early career. He now serves as an Advisor to TrendMD while also pursuing new information technology ventures and simultaneously helping patients through his clinical practice.   

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